This year, fill your resolution list with easy, good-for-you goals.
Try one of these simple lifestyles tweaks each day, and you’ll not only jumpstart a healthier body and mind — you’ll feel fantastic and psyched to make 2020 your best year ever.
Eat veggies regularly
Whether you’re slimming down or just staying healthy, vegetables are your friends, says Mehmet Oz, M.D. One woman who appeared on his show — Tiffany, who lost 31 pounds — says, “I sauté onions, peppers, mushrooms, corn — whatever I have in the freezer — and toss that on a bed of baby arugula and spinach.” Sounds delicious.
Book all your doctor’s visits for the year
Open your calendar app and make your appointments for the year in one sitting — not only will you get the anxiety-inducing nuisance over with, but exams will be less likely to get squeezed out as life gets bonkers. Start with your GP, and ask which screenings (e.g., mammogram, colonoscopy) you’re due for. Slot those in, then move on to the dentist’s office, etc.
Cut calories without going crazy.
Who has time to eat healthy!? You do, with this our new cookbook. With recipes from Good Housekeeping’s Test Kitchen, the cookbook makes it simple to use your Instant Pot to make nutritious, yummy meals.
Do one thing at a time.
Multitasking doesn’t make you more efficient, but it does stress you out, says mindfulness expert Pedram Shojai, author of The Art of Stopping Time. “If your focus is fragmented, you’ll likely find yourself getting anxious as new items come up when old ones are still incomplete,” he says. Instead, he suggests, organize your activities into chunks of time, such as kid time and cooking time, and then “commit to being focused in those allotted minutes and see what happens.”
Take the stairs.
Take 10 minutes to run up the stairs in your office or home. A study in the journal Physiology & Behavior found that tired women who climbed stairs for 10 minutes got a bigger energy boost than those who had the caffeine equivalent of a can of soda or half a cup of coffee (and burned calories too!).
Wear workout gear that makes you feel good.
Spend the afternoon shopping for workout clothes that flatter your body: Studies show that what we wear affects the way we feel, which impacts our ability to get stuff done, says Hajo Adam, Ph.D., a professor at Rice University. It’s a phenomenon known as “enclothed cognition,” and it’s as true in Zumba as at work.
